'Publicity blitz to draw crowds towards Goa Pro Football league'

Calangute (Goa), Aug 14 (IANS) Heavy outdoor publicity, a print and radio advertising blitz and aggressive marketing will hopefully draw the crowds back to Goa's football stadiums, say organisers of the Goa's Pro Football league.

The organisers further told a media briefing at a coastal resort, 20 km from the capital, that football players will also be incentivised for their performance in the league matches.

"We are trying to get the crowds back to the football matches. That is the key," Ajit Ravindran, vice president of Procam, a sports management agency engaged by the Goa Football Association (GFA) told reporters.

He was responding to a question on what marketing techniques would be adopted to make the game more attractive and bring more sponsors to the league, which has seen crowd support diminish over the years.

"Getting people to the stadium and making them sit under the sun to watch matches, simply wont do," Ravindran said.

"We are trying to market the Pro Football league better," Ravindran further said, even as the organisers have roped in a leading mobile service provider Airtel as the main sponsor of the annual event.

Ravindran said the players, who knock the ball around in the league matches, would now be incentivised for their performance, which he hoped would improve the quality of football.

"This time around we will have man of the match prizes for every match as well as prizes for best performance across different disciplines like keeping, defending, etc," Ravindran said.

Goa's Professional Football League, is regarded as one India's most competitive football leagues, which sends the maximum number of clubs to the I League.

The PFL, this year, will be played in two phases. The first phase will involve ten teams playing a round robin league until September 2013. The second phase will have the top five teams picked from the round robin table who will play for a 'Goa Super League', while the bottom five teams would slug it out to avoid relegation.